Pilots

There's no easy way to say it: Frank Buck Willis Jr. (he prefers Buck) crashed in a Cessna 182 after getting knocked unconscious while flying at more than 5,000 feet. His legs and feet were severely mangled by the impact. Yet, he wouldn't change a thing. He was happy with his life before the crash, and he is happy with what has happened since. Instead of getting him down, the crash inspired Willis to greater achievements.

He is not exactly sure what happened, but here is what the FAA investigators said. He was flying in May 1991 for a friend's skydiving operation in Fentress, Texas. The jumpers had left the aircraft, and Willis was descending in a left turn when the housing that covers the left wing strut failed and flew up into the prop blast. The blast of air sent the strut housing through the windshield and into Willis, knocking him out. There had been no warning, although a few minutes earlier he had heard a "pop" and thought that he had struck a bird. Investigators told his friends that Willis might have been the first person in the world to survive a plunge from such an altitude.

The aircraft hit the parched Texas soil wing first and cartwheeled onto the nose, pushing the engine into the cockpit — where it shattered both of Willis' legs. Part of one anklebone exploded through his high-top shoes and was found on the other side of the cockpit in the mud, still attached to his body by tendons.

Willis woke up in a Breckinridge, Texas, hospital 24 hours later. He spent a month in intensive care and two more months in the hospital while doctors began a series of 16 orthopedic operations. The medical names for the procedures roll easily off his tongue, but for the rest of us they mean ankle fusion and operations to combat bone infection. He even knows the correct medical term for shattered bones, surprising knowledge for a pilot that offers a clue to his present success.

It took three years for teams of doctors and nurses to put Buck Willis back together again. That includes six months in a wheelchair, and many months more on a walker. He now walks unassisted but must use corrective shoes, since one leg is shorter than the other. He is grateful to his doctors and recites their names like a Hollywood star after receiving an Academy Award — he insists that I briefly mention doctors Spears, Reynolds, Turner, Bagwell, Bisset, Redfern, Schram, and Smith. They inspired him as well as repaired him.

"It was the best gift I could ever have been given, more than I could ever imagine," Willis insists. Most of us would find it hard to agree, but the forced time on the ground led Willis to complete his partially finished college degree and then go on to graduate school. "I had to focus on my cognitive output, whether it was finishing off the degree that I had always wanted to finish, or starting the graduate program in physical education with biomechanical research." Willis raced through the college courses at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, getting his long-delayed bachelor of arts degree in 1993 and completing a graduate degree in 1997.

Willis keeps a résumé sheet with him showing pictures of the accident, pictures of the rehabilitation, and pictures of him getting his two college degrees. A blank space for a final picture reads "M.D., 2004."

Following his recovery, he became interested in mountain biking and has competed five times in races in several states. He began with 10-mile races and advanced to the Sport category, a 20-mile ride. He has placed among the top finishers, getting as high as third, but still hopes to win one.

The medical degree is not his final goal — the real goal is to help others. As the saying goes, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Willis makes gallons of the stuff.

"I decided to take some of the information I learned from my experience and try to mold that into learning that might help others," he said. He had plenty of firsthand information. His master's thesis focused on treating knee disorders. As a result of his treatment, he developed the type of stance that can lead to knee injury — where most of the person's weight is on the heel. He can use himself to test his theories. As a doctor, he feels he can prove valuable to rehab patients by offering leadership through example. "I've been there," he notes.

The accident in no way blunted his passion for flying. As soon as he got out of his cast, he went on walker and crutches to a friend's Boeing Stearman for his first flight since the accident. He found that all the excitement and enthusiasm for flying was still there. He continues to fly Stearman and Douglas DC–3 aircraft today for the Confederate Air Force. After recovering, he went back to flying cargo, but got furloughed four times in one year. That's when he decided that God had not only saved him from death, but was trying to tell him to become a doctor as well.

Persistence got him admitted to a medical school, the University of St. Eustatius on St. Eustatius Island in the Dutch Caribbean, south of the island of St. Martin.

"If you think of everything as cause and effect, I'm in the best place in my life that I've ever been — better than I could ever have imagined. If I had to wipe away that plane crash, I would have to wipe away the place where I'm at," he said.

To paraphrase humorist Will Rogers, Buck Willis never met a challenge he didn't like.